Not yet an influential, substantial recovery.
New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, but a rise in the four-week moving average to a six-month high indicated the labor market recovery will remain painfully slow.
Via CNBC.
I respond to email directly, but sometimes summarize questions and replies in a post. Here are a few summaries, in one of those posts.
A question about fees for new construction permits, from the discussion at Common Council Tuesday night.
These are positive changes, and it was right to seek a lower and more competitive fee schedule, with a more modern method of calculation. I’ll write more about this, and why it’s a good idea, tomorrow. One of the reasons that I’ve not yet written is that I like to include the video of a meeting along with my commentary, so readers can assess for themselves if my take reflects the proceedings accurately.
Embeddable videos of Council meetings are not always available the next day, so sometimes a post takes longer. The way around that limitation, however, would be to embed my own clip of a portion of a meeting.
In any event, more tomorrow about fee reform.
Will comments be back?
Yes, tomorrow, running from Friday around noon through Sunday morning. Featuring a poll, too, and styled as a challenge on a particular topic, at least for a while.
Questions about the search for a new police chief.
One searches for a set of standards, and then afterward someone who’ll live them. Leaders come and go, and it’s their policies, not their personalities, that remain to shape those who come after.
Do the Brewers still have a chance?
Yes, you bet they do.
Why don’t you write / comment / praise / celebrate/ endorse / ponder / express gratitude for the Ron Paul candidacy?
Oh, brother.
You don’t comment as much about newspapers as you used to do.
That’s true. It may not always be true.
Don’t you feel at least a little sorry for bin Laden?
No, absolutely not. Bin Laden was a murderous enemy of our people, of our way of life. The president’s order was the right thing. Libertarians believe in peace; we are not, however, pacifists. Men and women have a natural right to defend themselves.
Bin Laden broke the peace, and America was right to bring the consequences of that breach directly to him.
Good morning.
It’s a partly cloudy day ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of sixty-nine degrees.
If you’re a Progressive, today’s a memorable day for you, I’d suppose. The Wisconsin Historical Society writes that in
1934 – Wisconsin Progressive Party Formally Organized
On this date Wisconsin’s Progressive Party was formally organized near 30 E. 2nd St. in Fond du Lac. It had begun as a “progressive” movement within the Wisconsin Republican Party more than 30 years before, and under leaders such as Robert M. LaFollette its list of achievements brought national attention to Wisconsin.
By the 1930s, a new generation of policy makers, many of whom had been trained under progressive Republicans, were advocating for reforms as part of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs (see our page on the Wisconsin roots of Social Security for an example). At the same time, a new generation of Republicans such as Walter Kohler were advocating their own solutions to the nation’s problems. The heirs of the LaFollette tradition organized a third party, the Wisconsin Progressive Party, to keep alive the traditions they valued. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]
For a solid critique of the New Deal (and of Hoover’s support for similar intervention during the preceding federal administration), see The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.
I wrote in January about Walworth County District Attorney Koss’s Foolish, Ignorant Price Tag on Justice, where D.A. Koss expected a crime victim to pay for the cost of an expert witness against the woman alleged to have defrauded her. Needless to say, this expectation called the prosecution of the criminal defendant, Beth Reeves, into question.
It seemed likely, at the time, that the conviction would be reversed. Sure enough, it has been. It was the State of Wisconsin that requested the reversal, asking the conviction be overturned because a conviction under those circumstances — expecting a secret payment for an expert’s fees from an alleged victim — is wrong and ludicrous under our law.
The Walworth County District Attorney’s office will have to try the case a second time, unless the defendant accepts a plea deal. See, Prosecutor plans to continue case against former Fontana contractor.
It’s hard to overstate how substandard, and simply unthinking, this effort has been.
The Gazette (Janesville or Walworth County version) fronts a story this morning about criminal charges against one of the members of Whitewater’s Common Council, councilmember Butler of District 2.
The print editions offer more detail than the online link, available at http://gazettextra.com/weblogs/latest-news/2011/may/17/whitewater-alderman-faces-drug-charges/.
Although other media will run the story, they’ll be chasing it, and have no more or better information than the coverage from the Gazette. more >>
Good morning.
Today’s forecast calls for occasional rain and a high temperature of sixty degrees.
In the city today, there’s a Community Development Authority meeting at 4:30 p.m. The agenda for that meeting is available online.
Perhaps, just perhaps, you’ve been wondering how tarantulas can cling to smooth surfaces. If you have, then Wired has the answer in a post entitled, “Silk-Oozing Feet Give Tarantulas a Gravity-Defying Grip.” Dave Mosher writes that
Tarantulas are too heavy to stick to glass, yet the largest spiders in the world regularly seem to defy physics.
The trick: Dozens of silk-oozing spigots on their feet spin near-invisible safety lines, keeping the colossal spiders stuck wherever they please.
“No one has ever accurately described these structures before,” said neurobiologist F. Claire Rind of Newcastle University in England, leader of a June 1 Journal of Experimental Biology study of the spigots. “We’re certain they’re playing a big role in preventing [tarantulas] from sliding down vertical surfaces.”
Proof?
Here’s a video of a tarantula doing its stuff:
Here in small-town Whitewater, we’re getting an expanded Walmart. It’s Walmart, not Tiffany & Co. It is, however, popular with millions, for low prices on a wide selection of goods.
We’ve also a selection of local merchants, some of whom are positioned to thrive regardless of Walmart’s plans. I’ve objected to an exclusionary ‘buy local’ effort because Walmart is local to us, too, and but mainly because the city administration was wrong to take sides in consumers’ choices between independent merchants and chain retailers. Adults can — and daily do — make these decisions without Whitewater’s city manager cheering on one side or another.
(In this case, oddly, cheering both: pushing for an anti-chain-store campaign while working to clear the path for Walmart. See, for general objections, Whitewater Local Government’s Favoritism of Some Local Businesses Over Others.)
Demonizing Walmart isn’t just silly — it’s destructive for communities that will benefit from lower prices for ordinary items. Reason has a video about how agitated some have become over Walmart:
Here’s the description accompanying the video:
Retail giant Walmart is planning to open its first stores in New York City and Washington, D.C.
That’s got local politicians and activists up in arms.
“Walmart, keep your plantation because there are no more slaves,” says New York City Councilman Charles Barron.
Walmart will make criminals of our children, argues Washington D.C. commissioner Brenda Speaks, because “kids are kids” so they’ll shoplift and then “security will grab them.”
If we’re tricked into welcoming Walmart through our city gates “wrapped up in a shiny package,” explains New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, it will take over and destroy us.
So what’s getting anti-Walmart activists so riled up?
The answer: cheap groceries.
Written and produced by Jim Epstein, with help from Joshua Swain. Narrated by Nick Gillespie. Approximately 7.30 minutes. more >>
There’s another council meeting tonight, but two political parts of the last meeting stand out.
Fees for a Search Firm.
There was discussion, and approval, of additional fees for a police search. Approval was the right decision, and the additional cost would have been easier if former police chief Coan hadn’t sought to retain thousands at the time of his resignation from Whitewater’s force. He left in March for a paid position in Minnesota, and so far as one knows, he’s still employed there. That money would have been useful to Whitewater; a gold watch would have been been cheaper.
In the end, the search for a person is really the search for a set of standards and principles. People come and go, but a good standard assures that successors will serve a community well.
Zoning.
There was discussion about a comprehensive zoning review, something that will be good for the city. The idea prompted a caution from Councilmember Winship, some of whose constituents are members of the Starin Neighborhood Association. (Here, I’ll tease: It’s an Historic Starin Neighborhood Association. It’s as though a half dozen other parts of our city had no history at all, or as though no one would realize that the homes in the Starin area are old.)
Jim Winship, by the way, is an intelligent and powerful advocate for that neighborhood group’s concerns. I’m opposed to their use of government to demand more and more, first in zoning, and later in public works. Still, Winship is a persuasive voice for the group’s views: clear, poised, consensus-oriented. I’d guess the group’s success owes far more to Winship’s effective stewardship of their issues than advocacy from the association’s other members.
It seems eminently clear, though, from the council discussion that this project isn’t about altering any given residential neighborhood’s existing arrangements but rather about making the city’s commercial standards more uniform and merchant-friendly.
A recording of the May 3rd meeting appears below:
Good morning.
Today’s forecast calls for a sunny day, with a high temperature of sixty-two degrees.
There’s a Common Council meeting tonight, at 6:30 p.m. The session agenda is available online.
The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that about three-hundred fifty years ago,
1673 – Jolliet and Marquette Expedition Gets Underway
On this date Louis Jolliet, Father Jacques Marquette, and five French voyageurs departed from the mission of St. Ignace, at the head of Lake Michigan, to reconnoitre the Mississippi River. The party traveled in two canoes throughout the summer of 1673, traveling across Wisconsin, down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River, and back again. [Source: Historic Diaries: Marquette & Joliet, 1673]
There a story over at the Janesville Gazette that catalogs the objections that some police leaders have to concealed carry rights (and probably to many other gun rights). See, Law enforcement against concealed-carry legislation.
I doubt that opposition to gun rights is nearly so strong among field officers as it is among administrators.
In any event, opposition to these rights is opposition to an existing constitutional right; impediments to the Second Amendment are no more legitimate than impediments to Fifth Amendment rights, for example. The Second Amendment has been treated as a second-class amendment, contrary to any plain meaning of the constitution or reasonable principle of interpretation.
Those who oppose Second Amendment rights are free to contend for an amendment to the constitution. They’re unpersuasive and mistaken, however, to try simply to wish or interpret existing, express rights away.
WRM writes of the gap between a highly competent citizenry and the mediocrity of the Establishment. There’s great talent of some in power, but of the broader Establishment, there’s never been a more disgraceful lack of ability. This is true of both political parties’ supporters, and is true, also, of imitative statewide elites in many parts of the country.
….The American people aren’t perfect yet and never will be — but by the standards that matter to the Establishment, this is the best prepared, most open minded and most socially liberal generation in history. Unsatisfactory as the American people may be from the standpoints of Georgetown and Manhattan, this is as good as it gets. Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman could only dream of the kind of sophisticated and cosmopolitan understanding that folks in Peoria have now compared to the old days.
The American people are less prejudiced, more globally aware and more willing to meet other cultures and societies halfway than ever before. Minorities today are better protected in law and more fairly treated by the public than ever in our history. No previous generation has been as determined to give women a fair chance in life, or to attack the foul legacy of racism. The American people have never been as religiously tolerant as they are today, as concerned about the environment, or more willing to make sacrifices around the world to promote the peace and well being of humanity as a whole.
By contrast, we have never had an Establishment that was so ill-equipped to lead. It is the Establishment, not the people, that is falling down on the job.
Here in the early years of the twenty-first century, the American elite is a walking disaster and is in every way less capable than its predecessors. It is less in touch with American history and culture, less personally honest, less productive, less forward looking, less effective at and less committed to child rearing, less freedom loving, less sacrificially patriotic and less entrepreneurial than predecessor generations. Its sense of entitlement and snobbery is greater than at any time since the American Revolution; its addiction to privilege is greater than during the Gilded Age and its ability to raise its young to be productive and courageous leaders of society has largely collapsed….
